


if it ain’t love

by jjokkiri



Series: monsta x bingo (winter 2017) [5]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, M/M, Monsta X Bingo, Platonic Love, Road Trip, and regrets the shit he does for him, but platonically, kihyun is a soft who loves minhyuk a lot, the kiho is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 16:56:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9616847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjokkiri/pseuds/jjokkiri
Summary: After a really bad breakup, Kihyun decides seeing Minhyuk’s smile is worth every pain and struggle.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the _Friendship_ square for [Monsta X Bingo](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/MXbingo), and for further supporting the fact that Kihyun is whipped for Minhyuk.

In an absolutely retrospective vision, if the vital factor of _ Lee Minhyuk  _ were stripped from the point, perhaps this was a bad idea.

And by bad idea, the intended meaning referred to  _ the absolute shittiest idea in the history of terrible ideas.  _ But then again, there was no one to blame aside himself, because it was him who came up with the brilliant idea of offering to take Minhyuk on a road trip across the country, when it occurred to him that his _ actual sunshine _ of a best friend wasn’t smiling. It had been a panicking instinct and his mind seemed to be horrifyingly creative, when he was trying to cheer Minhyuk up, in all negative connotations of the term, if there were any.

But, that was to be easily presumable, because the second his phone rang as soon as he got off of work, he was expecting the worst.

Not that his idea of  _ the worst _ was ever to pick up the phone to hear Minhyuk’s broken voice, obviously having just cried, telling him:  _ “Changkyun broke up with me, what do I do?” _

So, the whole idea of dragging Minhyuk into his car and insisting that they drive halfway across the country derived from the single moment of panic, when he searched his mind for potential methods of cheering someone up. There had been an idea somewhere in the back of his mind which reminded him that Minhyuk had told him about the idea in the middle of their eleventh year of high school (“Hey, Ki, when we get our licenses, we should embark on a journey across the country. You know, a best friends road trip!” Minhyuk said to him, before he’d learned that he hated driving with a burning passion).

The last time something constituted as a terrible moment in their lives, Minhyuk had coaxed Kihyun into making him feel better with the most ridiculous pleas. For years, Minhyuk had been asking Kihyun to let him dye his hair, and the younger man was firm about not letting Minhyuk touch it, despite all of the certifications. But, the second Minhyuk was upset and crying about a fight he had with one of his ex-boyfriends, Kihyun had given in, as an attempt to see Minhyuk cheer up——unfortunately for Kihyun, by letting him bleach his hair and dye it pink (“Don’t you trust me? This is my job! I do hair things,” Minhyuk had whimpered, while mixing the bleaching powder with a terrifyingly high-powered developer, “You’re the one who said that you’d let me do things to your pretty virgin hair!”)

He had to take a moment and wonder when he ever turned into someone who would do anything and everything to keep his best friend happy. Minhyuk’s smile has always been the sole thing which brought him up when his days were long and shitty, stressful work hours and all of the lovely struggles.

But, apparently, that also meant that he was crazy enough to sit through hours of the one thing he hated the most in order to try and make Minhyuk happy. The most difficult aspect of the entire plan was the sole fact that Kihyun wasn’t even sure if the plan would work. Sure, it was something the older man had proposed since they were still in high school and they were finally fulfilling it, post-college; but, it didn’t change the fact that Kihyun hated driving and Minhyuk was in no state to drive.

Some things he did for Minhyuk were things that he could really get used to, such as the bright pink hair (he’d grown quite attached to the look, despite the stress on his poor hair). Being stuck in a car with someone for hours, regardless of if it was his best friend or not, Kihyun really didn’t think he could handle it for very long at all.

There was something about cars which stressed him out——Minhyuk’s always called him insane for preferring the usage of public transit when he paid insurance on his car (the car which his parents had gifted him upon his graduation, completely ignoring the fact that he absolutely despised driving for no apparent reason). It only makes it worse that he’s leaving New York without informing anyone who might miss him; parents, other friends, secret lovers——Minhyuk’s more important.

Still, it was too late to regret the fact that Minhyuk’s seat belt was already strapped across his body and they were already three cities away from home——too far to actually turn back without considering it as a waste of time and gas. So, onward they had to drive and Kihyun was dreading every single second of the ride, because his best friend wasn’t speaking.

And as much as he would hate to ever say it aloud (because he was certain that Minhyuk already knew), Kihyun hated every awkward moment by Minhyuk’s side. Those weren’t supposed to exist. Minhyuk was always bright and cheerful and he hardly ever left any room for a second of awkwardness. For Kihyun to have to put effort into avoiding it, it was more than simply concerning.

Kihyun would hate Changkyun for breaking up with Minhyuk, but his more rational side insisted that there would be a good reason. His main focus for the time being was to make Minhyuk happy again, no matter what it took. He’d already done the most with this ridiculous road trip, anyway.

“Can you turn on the radio, Min?” Kihyun asked, trying to at least have something accompany him aside from Minhyuk’s dead silence and his own self-hatred for even offering to drive.

Minhyuk’s eyes directed themselves to the panel of buttons in front of them, and a sinking feeling found its way into Kihyun’s gut. The older man would generally jump at the chance to play anything and everything in the car; his bubble-gum pop over Kihyun’s oddly depressing classical music, any day.

“The aux cord is in the compartment in front of you,” Kihyun added, trying again to get his best friend to do anything aside from blankly staring out the window, “If you want to play music from your phone, instead.”

Minhyuk pouted and Kihyun spared him a glance as they cruised down the highway, “Let’s play music from your phone. I don’t want to look at my phone; it reminds me of how he texted me all the time...”

Breakups were always hard, but Kihyun couldn’t begin to grasp why Minhyuk’s personality had gone down with his mood. At some point, it gets a little too concerning. Sure, their relationship had lasted just over a year and a half, and they were the sweetest couple in the world (which was why Kihyun couldn’t understand why Changkyun would have the nerve to break it off), but he’d never taken Minhyuk as someone who would change so much with the aftershock of a breakup. The older man was so bright and independent, but he supposed he couldn’t say very much about it. It wasn’t appropriate to make snarky comments when all you wanted was for your friend to smile.

Questioning their emotions would be far from attempting to succeed in such.

Inhaling sharply, Kihyun turned his head back to the road. There were rules against touching Kihyun’s phone, and Minhyuk knew that (strangely, the younger man had much to hide on the tiny device, but the focus of the trip was to ensure that Minhyuk would smile again). Sighing, he supposed that he could take more than just the risk of his mentality disintegrating from driving, for Minhyuk.

_ Best friends did everything for one another, right? _

“My phone is in the backseat, if you can reach it,” he replied. Because for the time being, so long as he could get Minhyuk to smile, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. After all, he didn’t think that anyone was really going to be texting him anytime soon; no one that Minhyuk didn’t know, at least.

So with a tremendous amount of difficulty as Kihyun drove, the older man turned and attempted to reach for the device placed in the pocket of one of the bag placed on the backseat. The pink-haired man could only pray that there wasn’t anything questionable on his phone screen at the moment that Minhyuk unlocked it. Best friends were supposed to tell each other everything, and Kihyun had intended to tell him everything he needed to know about his best friend’s private life, but unfortunately, every time that he wanted to: something came up and it just didn’t feel right to say anything.

A long five minutes of struggling later, Minhyuk reappeared with Kihyun’s phone in his hands, but his expression remained far from its happiest, despite finally having gained permission to touch the forbidden device known as his best friend’s cellphone (Minhyuk’s always asked him what he had to hide from him, to forbid him from ever touching the device when he wasn’t being supervised). Kihyun looked at him through the corner of his eye and the rear view mirror with a concerned purse of his lips, but he refrained from making any remarks as his best friend plugged the auxiliary cord into the device.

And then there was a moment of silence.

Minhyuk broke it. “What’s your passcode?”

“0103,” Kihyun replied, looking over his shoulder to peer at the next lane over.

The look of confusion on Minhyuk’s face was probably his imagination, but Kihyun had no way of really knowing, because it vanished as soon as it appeared and his eyes needed to focus back on the road. The sound of the feedback from Minhyuk’s fingers tapping against the screen filled the small space of the car and Kihyun tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, anxiously.

“I thought you said your passcode was always going to be my birthday,” Minhyuk pouted. Kihyun cleared his throat.

“I changed it very recently,” he told him, shifting his eyes and busying himself with focusing on the road as he switched lanes.

“I’m upset,” Minhyuk said. Kihyun couldn’t help but manage a small smile, because this was obviously a joking tone and slowly, he would get his best friend to return to his happiest state. He’d just hold his hand through every little moment of it. That’s what friends were supposed to do, Kihyun was certain of that.

“No, you’re not,” Kihyun answered, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth as Minhyuk scrolled through his music selection (surprisingly, without a single word of complaint).

“I’m upset enough to play that one extremely depressing song that you always play on every midnight trip to McDonalds’ when I give you the aux,” Minhyuk replied.

And true to his words, he does play the classical tune that Kihyun adored. The pink-haired man refrained to complain about how the song was far from depressing, but he supposed that he should let Minhyuk have small victories throughout the entire day. It was the least he could do for the man who kept him smiling through a majority of his life; it’s the least he could do for his best friend.

 

 

 

They don’t talk again until the sun has set and the stars were beginning to peek out from behind clouds. Minhyuk, likely exhausted——or maybe the music had lulled him to sleep, because it was far from the typical bubble-gum pop that Kihyun never really understood to appeal of——knocked out in the passenger seat as Kihyun navigated his way to their first destination of the road trip. He could hardly believe that he had offered to drive the older man across the States for the simple reason of  _ trying _ to make him happy. The key word being  _ trying _ , because he wasn’t even sure if it would work.

From the past seven terribly stressful hours of straight driving, Kihyun swore he felt an impending doom that his (terribly shitty) plan would fail and this trip would end up a million times more depressing than if he were to just drive alone. He already hated driving, but his mind that thought that this trip would make the older man cheer up a little bit. It would help, if Minhyuk wasn’t so deathly silent and he had someone to speak to.

The silence only reminded him how much he hated driving, for every reason Minhyuk deemed as completely unreasonable.

They find themselves on a cliff in the middle of an unfamiliar state——they’d grown up in New York——and Kihyun hesitated to wake his best friend up and tell him that they’d be stopping for the night. They’d park somewhere random and grab something to eat; maybe rent out a motel for the night, no matter how sketchy and talk about how shitty their lives were, in a city far away from home——far away from everything they were used to.

With a heavy heart, the pink-haired man pulled into the parking lot of a gas station and he nudged his best friend awake, gently. Minhyuk rose from his slumber with hazy eyes and a confused expression; unsure of where they were (and in truth, Kihyun wouldn’t be able to tell him where they had ended up driving to).

“We’re going to stop here for the night,” the younger man told him and Minhyuk nodded, rubbing his eyes sleepily. Kihyun couldn’t help the smile gracing his lips at the expression. The smaller man unplugged his phone from the auxiliary and arched an eyebrow. “I need to fill up the tank and then, maybe we can go find somewhere to knock out for the night, unless you want to go stargazing, or something.”

Staring at him, it was obvious that the older man was still trying to grasp a sense of reality and maybe, find out where they were currently located. Nudging his best friend again, the pink-haired man smiled, “We’re at a gas station. Grab my wallet and go get us some snacks, or something. You can get anything you want, and I won’t complain about you eating like shit, I promise.”

Minhyuk blinked at him and Kihyun hoped it wasn’t a trick of the light when he swore he saw Minhyuk’s lips curling into a small smile. The young man handed his wallet to his best friend, entrusting him with all the cash in the wallet. He kept his debit card to himself and shooed the older man away as he stepped out of the car and moved to fill up the tank of his car.

When Minhyuk disappeared into the convenience store, Kihyun leaned against his car as he filled up the tank with a heavy sigh.

Slowly, things were starting to look brighter, but it was moving entirely too slowly for Kihyun’s preference.

And when he has to head into the convenience store to pay for the gas, he’s not surprised to see Minhyuk’s arms full of bags of chips and a club-sized bottle of pop. Kihyun would hate him for even thinking of bringing such foods into his car, if he was an anal perfectionist about the neat state of his car. But, he supposed there wouldn’t be too much of a pain to clean the orange of nacho chips off his leather seats. For Minhyuk’s sake.

“I can’t believe you,” Kihyun chuckled as he turned his head away, handing the cashier his debit card and paying for the gas.

Minhyuk pouted at him, “You said I could get anything I wanted, and you gave me your wallet. You never do that.”

“Take this as a declaration and confirmation that I do love you, more than I’ve proven by putting up with your ass for the past ten years, Lee Minhyuk.” Gesturing to everything Minhyuk was holding, Kihyun flashed a sympathetic smile at the cashier, “... all of that, too. Please. Sorry.”

 

 

 

Their night is settled outside instead of in a motel, because Minhyuk insisted that he’d much rather lay down on a cliff-side and watch the stars with his best friend than actually sleep in a nasty bed. Kihyun swore he could recall a teenage Minhyuk saying the complete opposite, but he couldn’t say that he was complaining. He was unsure of how he felt about sleeping on a bed where countless strangers have definitely done questionable things on.

They’ve rolled out the blankets Kihyun kept in the back of his car and Minhyuk found the plush toy Kihyun hid in the trunk; the toy now seated in his lap as he stared up at the twinkling stars.

And they go from pointing out stars, discussing their star signs with ridiculous stereotypes, to talking about Minhyuk’s feelings, beneath the stars. Minhyuk’s fingers are orange with the cheesiness of the chips he’d been eating, and Kihyun swears they’ve both had too much pop for a single day, and it ensured that they wouldn’t be sleeping; but he’s not sure that he minds staying up all night with his best friend.

Minhyuk was playing with the plush toy and Kihyun almost wanted to yell at him to be careful with the toy, because he didn’t want to be cleaning cheese off of the fluffy toy, but he couldn’t find it in himself to raise his voice at his currently timid friend.

“He broke up with me because he wanted to focus on school,” Minhyuk sighed.

Kihyun’s lips pressed together in a frown and his mind reminded him that it was reasonable enough. The young man, Minhyuk’s ex-boyfriend, was a fourth-year student at a local university with everything on the line. He couldn’t risk losing his scholarship if he balanced his relationship and school together, because Changkyun was the type of person who would feel terribly guilty if he left either of the two alone for too long.

“You know,” Kihyun exhaled, “If it wasn’t love, it doesn’t work out, right? And even if it was love, then it doesn’t always work out. You always say that I’ve never been in love, so I don’t know, but you can’t deny that I give reasonable advice right? Whatever the reason for the breakup, you know Changkyun wouldn’t do something to purposefully hurt you. You can get over it and I don’t want you to dwell over this. I understand that you loved him, and I’m certain he loved you just as much, but he has so much on his hands and maybe he really can’t handle all of that. Not every breakup is for the worst, right?”

Minhyuk nodded, burying his face into the plush bear and nodding his head, listening.

“And if anything, you always have me, because I love you, you know?” Kihyun added, chewing on his lower lip, because he wasn’t used to telling his best friend that he loved him. That was something that Minhyuk was expected to know, but Kihyun supposed that in a time like this, the older man needed that assurance that someone loved him, even if it was just Kihyun.

“I guess,” Minhyuk started, fingers absently plucking at the grass as he pursed his lips, still obviously upset but significantly better. “I guess that I can just join you in the single life for a while, right?”

Kihyun hesitated at the inquiry, unsure of how he was supposed to respond to the remark; unsure of how he was supposed to break it down to Minhyuk that there was a little bit of an incorrect perception of Kihyun’s relationship status; “Well...”

Minhyuk shot him a look, _ “What?” _

“About that...” he started, gathering the blankets into his hands and clearing his throat as he awkwardly looked up at the stars.

“No,” Minhyuk started, lips immediately curling into a wicked smile and he eyed the younger man, “Holy shit,  _ no way. _ ”

Flustered, Kihyun looked away from him and avoided the eye contact Minhyuk insistently made. The brunet dropped the plush toy and practically tackled the pink-haired man down to the grass and grinned down at him. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, Kihyun! How could you do this to me? Who’s the lucky fucker?”

Kihyun wheezed, pushing his best friend off of himself and hiding his face behind his hands.

“Is this why you didn’t let me touch your phone?” Minhyuk pressed, “Oh my god, it is, isn’t it? You didn’t want me to see nasty shit like you sexting people!”

“Minhyuk!” Kihyun squawked, “I don’t  _ sext  _ people!”

There’s the pounding of Minhyuk’s fists against the younger man’s shoulder in a playful statement of disbelief and mock betrayal. But, Minhyuk’s smiling and Kihyun could hardly believe that he managed to break the news to his best friend in such a ridiculous manner. He supposed a formal introduction of Minhyuk to his secret lover would be more proper, but for now, this was fine.

“I wanted to tell you earlier, but it never felt like the right time,” Kihyun told him as Minhyuk ruffled his pink locks and glared at him, playfully.

“I want  _ all _ the details,” he said, “And I want to meet this boy.”

So, they talk: about how Kihyun met someone who makes him happy; about where the boy lives; and why he’s so special that he managed to keep Kihyun’s attention for long enough to actually hold a relationship, amidst Kihyun’s insistence on focusing on his career instead of looking for Prince Charming. Minhyuk found himself amazed throughout the entire conversation and Kihyun couldn’t have been any more glad that they’d found something to get the older man’s mind off of Lim Changkyun.

“I’m happy for you, y’know,” Minhyuk sighed, when Kihyun finally finished telling his story, lips still settled into a sweet smile. “I can’t believe that you have a boyfriend and you left him in New York to be with me.”

“Thank you,” he exhaled. “But, you know I’d do anything for you.”

In that moment, Kihyun’s lips tugged into a small smile and his eyes found themselves downcast: seeing Minhyuk smile was the prettiest thing and he couldn’t help but to mirror the expression. Prettier than the stars in the night sky; prettier than the way the ocean twinkled at them. This was the best friend he knew, and he’d do anything to keep him smiling, because losing that part of Minhyuk was losing everything.

And if that ain’t love, he isn’t sure what is. 


End file.
